Asa Gray will try to get HWB’s paper reviewed.

Also mentions that he (CD) wrote a short review of it for Natural History Review [Collected papers 2: 87–92].

Asks whether bees or Lepidoptera visit flowers of Melastomataceae.

Congratulations on marriage, which CD considers the best and only chance for happiness in this world.

Glad HWB is near completion of book.

Begs him to thank Wallace for Melastoma information; CD "cannot endure being beaten by a beggarly flower".

CD relates Asa Gray’s pleasure over HWB’s paper and Gray’s plans to write abstract [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 36 (1863): 285–90].

Thanks HWB for his book [Naturalist on the river Amazons]. Feels sure it will often be alluded to in other works.

Asa Gray is fascinated by the "Butterfly paper" ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566].

Has finished vol. 1 [of Naturalist on the river Amazons]. CD praises book as "best ever published in England".

The review in the Athenæum was cold, as always, and insolent.

After finishing vol. 2 [of Naturalist on the river Amazons], CD still has only praise. Remarks that his family is also enjoying the book. He regrets having finished, since he so enjoyed the descriptions.